


Love is a deeper season

by threadoflife



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Soft John Watson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-05 05:43:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12788283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threadoflife/pseuds/threadoflife
Summary: At five on a winter morning, John Watson wakes up with Sherlock Holmes’ face very close to his.





	Love is a deeper season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emily Apismelifera](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Emily+Apismelifera).



> Dear Emily Apismelifera,
> 
> I hope you like this.
> 
> You wanted something “softe,” which I hope this will be—in spades. Soft John Watson after s4 is something of an obsession of mine.
> 
> Please do not sue me for cavities. ❤️
> 
> Happy Holmestice. I hope you like this!

yes is a pleasant country:  
if's wintry  
(my lovely)  
let's open the year  
…  
love is a deeper season  
than reason;  
my sweet one  
(and april's where we're)

  
E.E. Cummings

 

  
Years into waking up most mornings with Sherlock’s face scant inches from his, one such morning repeats.

John wakes up.

Gravity: on his eyelids, and a heavy blanket of it—as if wet but dense—that weighs down his entire body. There is no actual blanket, just the heft of good, deep sleep on top of him.

If it were summer, John would stretch his body in a tight arc until it would be looser. But it is not summer, and the chill from the window, cracked open, drags lazy fingers over the contours of his face and down his bare arm thrown over the duvet. Goosebumps follow, a trail of pleasant prickling, little chills and shudders all down his forearm.

He flexes his fingers when the chill-shudders stop short at his wrist.

Slowly, his eyes open. The bedroom manifests before him, colours blurring into one another until with a series of quick blinks, they clarify and retreat into their respective shapes.

Sherlock’s face is there, in front of his, illuminated through the lamp on the nightstand they’d forgotten to turn off.

John looks.

In sleep, Sherlock seems younger. His skin is smoother, not contorted in frowns or laughter. It simply rests, and there is a shine to it through the calm of sleep. His chins fold about his jaw, rendering the sharpness of his narrow face oddly soft and rounder than it really is. It is something that is reflected in his Cupid’s bow: dramatic and prominent, it presents a curiously softened V, the cut of it more supple and yielding than pointy. The lip underneath it is chapped, wrinkled by numerous tiny lines. John has the urge to smooth his tongue over it to lap over them so the wetness of his saliva would soften them into flatness.

In sleep, Sherlock seems younger. There is a vulnerability in his chins, an openness in the surprising atypical roundness of his face when viewed from below—having everything to do with his chins being exposed like this—that makes him look a little guileless.

Nevertheless, in sleep he is marked by age. No wonder: Sherlock comes into his forty-fourth year now. Of course time will leave its signs.

There are perpetual wrinkles to the sides of his eyes when he sleeps. When he was younger, they manifested only when he smiled; now they are a constant. They are fine but deep, the lines a painter would carve into a beloved statue with calm, careful hands. His face is a Pygmalion piece.

Sherlock’s forehead is not smooth. Through years of deep, unbroken thought, this is a stain his mind has left—two deeper lines, just above the centre, running parallel with slight dips in the middle. John wants to rub his thumb over them, from left to right and back again, so he can feel the little creases out.

Over that forehead, a shock of dark hair. Wild curls, longer than Sherlock likes but the right length for John to card his fingers through (—the right length for John to fist it, really). The hairline has receded, just barely, enough to elongate his face a little further. At the temples, the first grey begins to show, stubborn, thin strands of it streaking through until they get lost in a wave.

When John next exhales—when has he come so close?—that face gives a brief, irritated twitch. With no little delight, John watches Sherlock’s nose scrunch up.

When his cheeks start hurting, he realises he has been smiling the entire time.

Look at him. How fucking lucky he is.

 _Sometimes I think about how terrified I’d have been if I’d had you when we were younger,_ comes the sudden thought, in a surge that’s just a bit anxious. _I’d have constantly been afraid of losing your attention. I was, and we weren’t even like this then. Not really._

The next exhalation is just a bit quicker, just a bit harder to get out, and as if to compete, his heart speeds up, pulse thumping faster, abruptly a solid, tangible weight in his chest. When Sherlock’s nose scrunches up again, this time John’s smile aches; there is a tightness to it now. Inside his mouth, he bites onto the tip of his tongue to take the edge off. It’s about five in the morning, Sherlock Holmes is sleeping beside him as he has done for the last years, and there is nothing to worry about: nothing; they are here, together, now, and it would not change. It would not change.

Sherlock’s face, his odd, elegant face, so close to John he sees individual lashes, the pores of his skin, the single hairs that make up his eyebrows: aged, but aged with dignity, with beauty.

— _but then I look at you like this and I know that’s bullshit_ , his head goes on. Over the (unwanted, intrusive) voice, he becomes distantly aware of his irregular breathing, his fast pulse. _That’s bullshit. I’m as terrified of losing you and your attention as I have ever been. I—_

Suddenly, warmth: warmth on his cheek.

With a small jolt inside his gut, John comes back to himself.

Sherlock’s hand, cradling his face—and John did not notice. Before he knows what he is doing, he has closed his eyes and tilted his head, pushing his cheek further into the cup of Sherlock’s palm, against which his stubble scritches. He holds his face like this, lets his skin suffuse with Sherlock’s warmth. The chill-shudders are pleasant, this time, a bit sharper, quietly thrilling: and all over his body.

The dips of Sherlock’s four fingertips are a reassuring, gentle pressure on John’s jaw and temple. The curve of Sherlock’s pinky finger rests on the patch of skin above John’s nostril, which John’s brain, gone pleasantly sluggish-slow, identifies a moment later as the supra-alar crease.

On the next inhalation, John realises, quite belatedly, that there is only one inhalation: Sherlock is breathing with him; they are breathing in sync; they are breathing slowly. John is breathing slowly.

His body follows his brain. A heaviness settles over him, taut muscles going pliant, and the sudden shock of anxiety departs as fast as it has come, leaving him just that bit shaky in the new-found stillness of his body. Very deliberately, he keeps staring at the darkness behind his eyelids and just breathes with Sherlock for a while; just breathes the air of the two of them, shared between their mouths.

Neither of their breaths is particularly pleasant. Halitosis, in all its glory: thick, invasive, unconcealable.

… Sherlock’s nose, scrunched up.

“You dick,” John mumbles into Sherlock’s hand. Though the words are entirely without heat, John follows them up with a small kiss to the centre of Sherlock’s palm anyway. “Was it fun watching me watch you, then?”

Of course. As if Sherlock could not observe him with eyes closed. Idiot.

“It was,” Sherlock agrees, voice as quiet as John’s. His breath washes over John’s face—

(There is no reason to be quiet: Rosie is a notoriously heavy sleeper, and Mrs Hudson has been long awake already, insomnia a gift of some elders. Maybe it’s the hour of the morning that compels Sherlock to speak in a deep hush.

Maybe it’s John.)

—and, feeling just a tad petty and caught, John wrinkles his nose.

His only response is a huffed laugh, and even with eyes closed, John knows Sherlock is smiling; he knows because he is smiling, too, helplessly; stupidly.

“You know I want all the parts of your body, John, but I reserve the right to be less fond of some of them,” Sherlock continues, lowly. It’s John’s turn to laugh, which is cut short since on the soft flesh just underneath the curve of his jaw Sherlock’s thumb gently begins rubbing back and forth, tiny movements. “But yes, I was watching you; I enjoyed it. I…”

Here, Sherlock hesitates. John debates opening his eyes, unsure if it’s easier (or harder?) for Sherlock to say it with John staring straight at him. They do talk more, these days, wouldn’t be here like this if they didn’t—but just because you have begun doing something doesn’t mean it’s easy to keep doing it, even years into it. Though Sherlock is better at this than John, he still struggles. They both do.

They both do, yet they both struggle against that struggle, too: each time, they overcome themselves, and with each small victory, the thing itself doesn’t get easier but they know how to handle it better.

So just as John begins opening his eyes, Sherlock confesses in a rush, “When you watch me everything inside me goes still,” and when he finishes, John is staring right into his eyes. He keeps doing that, staring. Inside his chest, his heart thu-thu-thumps.

He’s once accused Sherlock of nothing but lies. Had said: it’s your mission, lying, you do it all the time. How wrong he’d been.

The lies had been his armour, pulled together in a tight net of skin so it was all John had been able to see. No longer, now—Sherlock’s genuineness shows in the confusion of his slightly knitted brows, the breathless gap of his mouth, and the intensity of his eyes all on John. Sherlock’s face, a dissection: the flesh of lies parted to reveal all the intricate, clever workings of the body within, bloody-raw, no secrets, no shadows; just plain, stark fact.

John stares, floored by the vocalisation of a knowledge he already had. He blinks in a manner reminiscent of Sherlock (rapidly; shallowly; overcome) and breathes. When he breathes next, Sherlock’s chapped lips press in against his own, a dry, warm meeting.

When Sherlock pulls back, he has kissed the overwhelmed, overcome parts of John away. The brows bracketing his bright eyes communicate curiosity in a way John instantly recognises, and John leans forward for another single, chaste kiss before curiosity has the chance to turn into hesitancy.

The beloved face before him breaks into a smile, a lopsided thing, just the corner of his mouth ticking up. The curiosity is warm, now, some tiny fragment of anxiety kissed away. Sherlock Holmes is in bed with him—is in their bed—at five on a winter morning, regarding John with the sort of bright-eyed, laser-focus curiosity that is all that John, really, in the end, lives for. It is the sort of truth one does not communicate, especially as parent, but with Sherlock’s pale, wrinkled face and chapped mouth so close to his—with the reality of bad breath shared in between their mouths—it is a truth that cannot be evaded, that must not, at any cost, be smothered. John has smothered it in the first years of their acquaintance, and the pain reaped from that is something they still bear on their shoulders. No longer. If Sherlock Holmes is all he lives for, Sherlock Holmes is all he lives for. It is the sort of unhealthy, codependent, problematic truth, but it is his truth—theirs, really—and neither of them will hide from it any longer.

Even if it manifests in awful kitsch. The kind John has always run from.

“I love you,” he breathes. The words stumble out past his lips. They feel vulnerable, sore, make his entire mouth ache: they need out.

Sherlock’s lips, so close, receive them. In just a little spasm of emotion, his fingertips twitch against John’s jaw and cheek and temple.

John doesn’t feel any breath on his face. Sherlock, for once, is speechless. John is, too. He’s never said it before, even though they’re raising a kid together; even after years of fighting and loving and fucking and dying for each other.

The slightest bit, Sherlock pulls back. His eyes are wide and still and unblinking, eerily bright. Incredibly, they soften; John stares, and stares. In the stillness of this breathless moment, it’s loud when Sherlock swallows. John echoes him, tries to gulp the next verbal flood back, but it pushes up relentlessly until he is babbling.

“I’m _in love_ with you,” he corrects, his voice mostly rough but a tad hysterical. He’s blinking fast, trying to get his own eyes to stop burning. Helplessly, his arms come up, and he buries his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, hold tight and vulnerable. “I’m in love with you, even if you’re a mad bastard, I’m just—Sherlock—I’m _so_ …”

His fingers tremble, one by one. It’s a tremor his words mirror.

“I’m so fucking in love with you,” he finishes, hushed. “Have always been.” He is blinking, fast, and then he’s turning his head to the side and pressing half his face into his own upper arm to evade Sherlock’s gaze. Laughing wetly, he realises his fingers are still in Sherlock’s hair. He wants to bolt, wants to run away, but he can’t let go. He never could.

Seconds pass as felt eternities. John feels surreal, both cold and hot all over, and he keeps staring fixedly at his own arm, Sherlock’s hand a branding touch under his cheek. Terror sweeps over him in one furious rush of needles when Sherlock’s breath comes again, haltingly, against the side of his neck.

“John,” Sherlock whispers. “You _idiot_.”

Through the mad thumping of his pulse in his ears, John recognises the tone of Sherlock’s voice: it’s his compliment voice, when idiot or imbecile or simpleton are dear or darling or, John imagines, sometimes, crazily, perhaps even love. A sour surge of hope rushes up his throat, stings the back of his eyes until it manifests wetly on his cheeks. Those stupid, traitorous tears he blinks onto Sherlock’s palm. That palm, then, very gently but insistently, cups his damp cheek and forces his head back so they are once more looking at each other.

Sherlock’s eyes are the softest John has ever seen. He watches, mesmerised and terrified, as they glaze over, as they become red and wet. Sherlock’s head is inclined ever so slightly, and John’s left hand drifts down to Sherlock’s jaw, where his chin folds. His thumb strokes that soft, vulnerable skin. It yields so, so easily, arrests John’s breath completely. God, with his chins—with his chins and his bad breath and greying hair—Sherlock is the most charming, beautiful man John has ever known.

Christ. Fuck. He’s got it bad.

”John.” Sherlock has always liked saying his name, John knows. Yet just now, it’s a quieter, more intimate version—small, just a little reverent. He sounds that way when he’s inside John, breathing damply into his neck, the back of his ear, or against the inside of his knee. John’s name: a soft sort of devastation in the vowel. A sort of, John has imagined, unique declaration of love.

Maybe—it isn’t all imagination.

“John,” Sherlock repeats, strangled, choked. He laughs—his bad breath fanning over John’s face—and it’s thick and congested. “You—you idiot. I know. _I know._ ”

Outside, the sun has not yet risen; it will be hours. Not that it matters. Inside, Sherlock Holmes is leaning over him, wet eyes shining, brows knitted in fond disbelief, and underneath his jaw his chins are folding; on John’s cheeks, his fingers are trembling; and his mouth is smiling a delighted, breathless thing of unreserved, sheer joy. John doesn’t need the fucking sun. John doesn’t need fucking anything. He has it all here, right here.

God, how lucky John is. How indescribably, stupidly lucky.

“I’ve always been in love with you,” John confesses in a shaky rush as Sherlock leans forward and presses their foreheads together. Being so close, they both blink, disoriented, and Sherlock squints. John giggles as he does, an unbearable swell of affection that aches just a little blooming in his chest. He pets his fingers clumsily through Sherlock’s hair, can’t seem to stop. “I’d have given you everything, Sherlock. I’d have given you the world, I _want_ to give it to you, I—”

Sherlock silences him with an impulsive kiss. Tilting his head just so, with the tip of his nose digging into John’s cheek, he touches his lips to John. He stays there, like this, and their eyelashes brush over one another, rapid little flickers of terrible intimacy. His body covers John’s, the blanket having slipped down. His hands are large on John’s face, all-encompassing. John wants to crawl inside him and never come back out.

Sherlock stays just long enough so John feels his lips part. The slick insides of his lips kiss John’s dry ones wetly, and with a slight smack, they part. When John licks his lips, they’re salty. When he breathes, Sherlock’s breath is unpleasant in his nose.

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Sherlock murmurs. “Advancing senility. Early morning hour, the deleterious effects of sentiment. I don’t care. But…”

Each of his words are a damp, brushed little kiss on John’s mouth.

“... you already have.” Swallowing, Sherlock smiles like he’s in pain, crooked and so wide. His lips are shaking. Solemnly, he strokes John’s cheeks with his knuckles. “Given me the world, I mean. It’s right here. In my hands.”

When Sherlock leans in next and their mouths brush at barely five on a winter morning, John knows every single moment of his life was worth it, was worth it all for this.

Sherlock’s love is worth a wound—is worth any wound of the world.


End file.
